JC: I think she's the opposite of angry. I think she's robotic, passionless, dull. Just on the surface, she just comes across as anything but angry. She comes across as someone who would just you know, put you to sleep, and sounds like she's about to go to sleep herself when she's speaking. Just sort of substantively, she has come to the Senate and just made best friends with all her enemies, and she's smiling and patting them on the back, and they're saying nice things about here. So she doesn't really seem to be someone whose motivated by anger in any way. So I think the whole charge is weird.

From the linked article by Chait:

[Y]ou can't very well run against a female candidate by calling her unmanly. So the best substitute is to call her unwomanly instead. Rather than act perky and cheerful, she's angry. There's a bad word that's supposed to spring to mind when you think of her, and it begins with the letter "b."

Yeah, well, calling a woman "robotic" and "passionless" is also a way of slamming her as unwomanly. The unsaid word in this case is "frigid."

52 comments:

I guess it's time for the weekly slam HRC article. I watch the great antipathy for the former 1st lady with a morbid fascination, as I'm never quite sure why there is such vehement dislike for her. What, exactly, has she done wrong that any other politician hasn't also done?

And whenever I hear the "b" word applied to a female candidate, I can't help but think of Barbara Bush's nasty description of Geraldine Ferraro.

Actually, I think Jon is pulling his punches here. After all, there's another word that conservatives routinely associate with "unwomanly," and it's not "bitch." Here is National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez last year pretending to tsk-tsk Ed Klein over his recent 336-page hit piece on Hillary:

"NRO: How many times do you use the word "lesbian" in your book? Why point out she had friends who were lesbians? Do we need to go there?"

"Klein: Hillary’s politics were shaped by the culture of radical feminism and lesbianism at Wellesley College in the 1960s. This is paramount in exploring the political life of Hillary Clinton."

[back to drum]

Paramount indeed. This is not exactly subtle stuff, boys and girls, and when Mehlman calls Hillary "angry" he's just test driving a slightly more subtle version of Klein's juvenile attack.

Did you read Drum's piece?

It's interesting that the center right moderates and the right wing itself wants to focus on Hillary's sexuality: is she a lesbian or frigid? What a distraction from the issues!

I think she borders on angry sometimes. In a generic, dispassionate sort of way. It reminds me of the debate where Al Gore set out to be the alpha male and sighed and snorted his way into losing the debate to Bush. Hopefully someday Democrats will realize that we need to run candidates who are likeable to people outside of the base.

Some of the coarse and uncouth Public call her Hippo Legs, Madisonman. I found it rather disgusting when she slobbered all over Mrs. Arafat after her speech that included references to the Israelis poisoning palestinian water sources. Other than that, any woman who remains married to a cheating, womanizer has no, ah, character. You know the word I wanted to say here...

Isn't Hillary a bit old for anyone to think in sexual terms about her?

The problem she has is the problem Gore and Kerry had but Clinton and W. Bush don't: she's wooden and doesn't seem to relate to people one on one. After one of the debates last year W. Bush was mixing it up with the reg'lar folk in the crowd and he actually looked pretty comfortable, like a guy who gets along and jokes with other parents at the little league game.

Bill Clinton is the same way, plus he looks comfortable around black people (although W. looks comfortable around Latinos). Really, the dems problem is that they need someone with personality and Hillary doesn't fit the bill. It has nothing to do with sexuality.

I think that nunzio has a good point. Both Clinton and GWB appear to like people and be comfortable around them. Neither is the least bit wooden when working a crowd, and, indeed, look like they enjoy it immensely. Contrary to their opponents, both are very likable people.

Al Gore, I think was just too calculating, and Kerry is wooden, a loner and, maybe even an introvert.

Hillary though is probably worst of all of them. You almost get the feeling that she doesn't like being around crowds because she can't control them. And the stories of her around the military and the White House staff are legion. Apparently, the later were all instructed to stand by the side of the hall when she walked down the hall and never to make eye contact. This was a big change from being treated as part of an extended family as both Bushes have.

I have no doubt though that the party of the people does have potential candidates who are comfortable around people and like them. I haven't seen enough of their potential candidates though to guess who they might be.

Nevertheless, there have been plenty of presidents in our recent past who weren't really people people like GWB and Bill Clinton. GHWB was too patrician to be good in crowds. Nixon, too paranoid and controlled (he sounds a lot like Hillary, doesn't he?)

I don't know about working crowds, but those I have talked to who met with Kennedy were impressed at how well he got along with them as just one of the guys, despite his privileged upbringing. For example, one of my father's law partners had him over during the 1960 campaign, and they just sat on his back porch for a couple of hours talking like a bunch of Irish guys, which they both were.

I could envision going to a barbeque at LBJ's ranch and enjoying it. Pure Texas and the consumate Texan. Probably even more than with GWB. I think that until he got mired in Vietnam and retreated to the White House, Johnson was the consumate campaigner, loving both working the crowds and the rest of the Senate.

Hillary does have an anger, but appears to go through life suppressing it. It rarely comes out in public. There were some times when her husband's actions were just too extreme for even her control, where she lost it.

As I mentioned before, I think she has the same problems that Nixon did - both are/were cold, calculating, controlled, and paranoid.

Normally, I think that being controlled would be advantageous for a woman running for president. One of the worries about them at such a level is that they might make decisions emotionally, and not logically. I don't really worry about that with Hillary, except that she is notorious for seeking revenge (Nixon again?).

But isn't that control one of the reasons that a lot of us like Dr. Rice as a presidential candidate? She too is totally controlled. Both of these women are very highly disciplined. (I think that maybe one reason that Dr. Rice doesn't appear as robotic is all the skating she got as a youngster).

Yes, I agree that Hillary is a wonk, not a politican. Condi seems to enjoy, so far, her career and has an easy political persona, but I always get this feeling that Hillary is an old-fashioned feminist who feels she MUST equal Bill or she is not worthy. Her ambition and her persona seem forced. I think she'd be much better on the Supreme Court or at the UN.

And why would this criticism be an invention of conservatives, when Condi (who BTW is a woman) is clearly a charismatic front runner?

And, yes again, for the liberal, anti-feminist press. Even the LAT and NYT comment endlessly on a female's clothes, hair--ridiculous.

She's no Bill Clinton, but neither is George Bush or John Kerry. And unlike George Bush, she speaks in gramatically correct sentences. Unlike Kerry, she understands message control.

The toughest campaign for her will be the primaries, when the vote-geting is up-close-and-personal. National campaigns are almost all about staged appearances and scripted ads. She won't have any problems there, unless the Republicans manage to find a candidate with charisma, which seems unlikely.

(Looking at Ford-Carter, Reagan-Carter, Reagan-Mondale, GHB-Dukakis, GHB-Clinton, Clinton-Dole, GWB-Gore, GWB-Kerry, the change of a charismatic candidate looks to be about 20%, 2 in 10.)

Part of quxxo's problem is that s/he thinks that Chait and Drum are moderates. Well, Stalin probably thought that Lenin was a moderate.

Also, madisonman, Barbera Bush said she was thinking of 'Witch' and was horrified that people thought she was calling someone a bitch. Ferraro is the one that pushed this idea saying "Why is that nice old lady calling me a bitch?"

I'd like to hope that we'll see their sexuality and marriage history off the table if Condi and/or Hillary run. But of course both will be targets, in the grossest terms the LGFers and assorted leftist misogynists (with an ironic twist, they'll insist) can muster.

Hillary's already weathered it: she's either a secret dyke, or what kind of woman stays with a cheating man...What's up with that last question? Don't we celebrate the vows of marriage anymore? Isn't it possible Hillary actually honors her commitment to love until death, in bad and good times?

Condi will be in for it, I think. I like Vic's "Virgin Queen" allusion, and yes, it's sexy. But there will be others framing her unmarried state, her longtime focus on career and power, in their own terms. I hope she's ready.

Maybe it will be good for us to have one big misogyny fest and get it out in the fresh air, like draining a cyst. Oh, and just as nasty.

Yeah, well, calling a woman "robotic" and "passionless" is also a way of slamming her as unwomanly. The unsaid word in this case is "frigid.".... Chait is on the left, where people can't hear their own anti-feminism.

Gore also was described both as "robotic" and "angry". Does this kind of criticism become objectionable only when directed at women?

I long for a Hillary - Condi face off. The left will raise Condi's never married status (and apparent lack of male suitors). The right will raise Hillary's sticking with Bill and her "Wellesely connections."

Maybe we will figure out that neither really matter and let the two off them square off intellectually. Sorry, what am I thinking, that would never happen.

I also confess to not understanding the sexuality issues here. Senator Clinton is an attractive lady (IMHO) but even if she wasn't, it isn't her looks, her realtionship with her hubby or those genuinely peripheral things that influence her desirability as a candidate in my eyes--I don't see her as "angry;" and I agree I think the use of the term "angry" is a partisan first strike, so to speak. Based on her work with the effort to reform health care in 1993, I see her as a classic liberal who tends to favor big government solutions--Other than that she is a politician, who bears the burden of having an ex-President as a spouse, and a general public recognition that she might seek the presidency--At least she is smart enough to understand what she says has consequences--I would not expect any thing less of a politician.

I think what Mehlman meant originally, and what Chait refuses to see is that when Hillary speaks, the only way she has to stir up a crowd is through anger - anger at the appalling Bush lapses, or at the vast right wing conspiracy, etc. All those known quantities that the left hates about the right.

Better politicians, natural-born politicians, charismatic politicians can inspire in more positive ways, in higher ways, including her husband, who inspired millions, but never me.

Hillary doesn't have a handle on that, so the way she chooses to inspire is the easier way - through anger.

She's a flaming liberal who's trying to sell herself as a moderate (moderates don't favor having the government take over all health care). She's a feminist who tried to pass herself off as "just a supportive wife" when that's what seemed politically most advantageous.

In short, she's a phoney who has established that she will do anything in order to get power, and is a vindictive bitch towards those who have "crossed" her.

The important question is (for those people who are not equally obsessed by power, anyway), "what is there to like about Hilary?

Hillary looked like a nut at the King funeral when she was nodding her head all through her husband's speech.

There's a lot nutty about her. She tried to channel Eleanor Roosevelt after all! At Bush's State of the Union she was grinning like a nutter. And the most memorable statement she ever made (she doesn't say many memorable things) was the "vast right-wing conspiracy" line - VERY nutty.

I don't feel bad calling her a nut, since she helped trash women her husband had affairs with all through his presidency.

Elizabeth said: Don't we celebrate the vows of marriage anymore? Isn't it possible Hillary actually honors her commitment to love until death, in bad and good times?

I think this is a very good point and well put.

Committed to her marriage and family even though Bill made a fool of her time after time, unable himself to achieve integrity as a husband. At least their daughter has one parent who models honesty, fidelity, and adulthood, and is true to her own feminist principles.

I for one take no interest in her sexuality, her age, her emotional life. Is there any record of her behaving, as a senator, emotionally inappropriately? No, I don't think so. Besides, psychologically well-adjusted individuals, both men and women, sometimes express healthy righteous anger.

"Vote Ragebot 2008" -- I know it would be a winner in a number of circles.

In all seriousness, I don't really see Clinton in either of those terms. I was just struck by the contrast in the title -- sort of like how the left portrays Bush as either a semi-literate moron or an evil mastermind bent on world domination.

I have always been fascinated at how the invectives aimed at women in general seem to either stick or at least be more damaging than the invectives aimed at men in general.

Why do women fear, and get so worked up over, ever getting called a slut? Why does it roll off a guy's skin?

Why does it so impact the perception of a woman to be called frigid, when a man getting called the same doesn't seem to be impacted as much?

Why does, when a woman is called a bitch, does it seem to resonate more and have more resilency than when a guy is called a prick?

I don't think I have ever fully understood this phenomenon.

But I do know this. My wife can be an incredible bitch. She can be frigid. She can be a slut... with me. She can be every single adjective that is used to denigrate women... and is at what I consider the right time. I love her more for her fire, for her ice, for her lust.

It was an insipid song, but Meredith Brooks had it right. But really, shouldn't that song have been an Alanis song?

Ann you have flipped flopped twice now in a two week period at almost precise weekly intervals. Weirdly tepid and passionless robotic flips at that, almost as if you were programmed direct from the talking points.

Harkonnendog: Exactly what did she do? Do you mean in her private life with her husband? Nothing that I know of. But how would that be any of our business as long as they chose to keep it private?

On the other hand, the serial sexual harassment of subordinates by her husband was an abuse of power and a betrayal of, among other things, feminist principles of equal rights and opportunity in the workplace. He was the President. So, as The People, that was our business. Although he wasn't impeached for the crime, he was impeached and duly held to account for related crimes, no?

For all we know, Hillary found a way to forgive him in their marriage, which is... private.

But I think you're begging a cynical question (not that there's anything terribly wrong with that). Apparently, Hillary herself has remained true to her marriage vows and has never abused power by sexually harassing people in her employ. Do you have evidence otherwise?

HC reminds me of many on the left: she has impressive verbal skills but appears to lack any real intellectual depth.

Her darting eyes and icy demeanor betray a complete lack of feminine warmth. Even if you knew her, she does not seem to be one with whom you would confide or discuss "affairs of the heart". Men, I think, are particularly sensitive to this negative aspect of her personality.

Another male observation: in spite of her admirable verbal skills, I think she lacks inner toughness and strength. In a crisis, I think she would be prone to hystereia. If Dick Morris'eyewitness accounts are to be believed, her hysterical fits were commonplace.

Now contrast HC with Condi. Here is a woman with grace, style, warmth and feminine genteelness. Her inner strength cannot be doubted. (In a crisis, I would not want to be on the receiving end of her resolve.) And Condi has an depth of intellect that HC cannot even begin to approach. Can you imagine HC having a serious conversation with Condi about music, art and Russian literature?

Click the links Gerry, both statements were made by Ann, referring to criticism of Hillary Clinton.

In one case she says it is okay to call Hillary angry and nothing sexual is meant by that word. In the other she says that the use of "passionless" and "robotic" are code words to imply that Hillary is frigid.

The invariant in both cases is that Ann wants to convey that Hillary is angry, too angry to be President.

Coincidentally, this is the current talking point. Frankly, I am surprised that a moderate such as Ann would be allow herself to so rotely and unquestioningly repeat the talking points.

What interests me is a meme crossing through a few comment threads here in the past few days. It has two variations: the categorical argument is that liberals have no intellectual depth, just feelings about things. The second, more charitable argument, is that some liberals mean really well, but again, they just lack intellectual arguments. Conservatives are about facts, and pragmatism.

Right. That's why I keep reading, from conservative men in particular, how Hillary just doesn't strike them as warm, and anyone can see from her demeanor she'd panic in a crisis and Condi is so warm and strong and comforting and smart. Anyone can tell. It's so obvious.

Where's that famous conservative cool logic? Lost in a mommy fantasy, apparently.

JC says that she is not angry, she is the opposite, passionless and robotic.

Today, you defend Huge Halfwit by criticizing JC by taking up the Modo position yourself: passionless and robotic are code words for frigid.

In both cases you seem to be defending the swiftboating that Hillary is angry.

To support this you had to take opposite positions, just six days apart.

I further speculated above that you do this because it is possible that that is what your primary logic circuits were programmed to do by your masters. Or perhaps because someone showed you the Queen of Diamonds.

Q, you missed the import of the Chiat interview. Chiat started out saying Hillary was robotic, but later Hewitt had him admitting that by his own definition she was angry. It was a nice little bit of cross-examination by Hewitt.

E, like it or not, personality plays a part in how electorates pick presidents. Gore came off as a bit of a weirdo who was trying on multiple personas, and Bush has a regular guy vibe. Clinton came across as a likeable garrolous uncle, Dole as a somewhat sour guy who talked in the third person. The personality aspect is mostly orthogonal to the policy issues.

Quxxo: Okay, let's look at what I actually wrote in the old post about Dowd and Mehlman:

"Ken Mehlman recently called her angry. Was that misogynistic? Dowd assumes it was. While it's a classic move to fault women for being weak and for being strong, and that's an unfair trap that we need to notice and reject, we need also to avoid the opposite problem of claiming that every criticism of a woman is misogynistic. If women are going to run for high office, we have to deal with strong criticism. Mehlman only said "I don't think the American people, if you look historically, elect angry candidates... Whether it's the comments about the plantation or the worst administration in history, Hillary Clinton seems to have a lot of anger." Slapping the label "misogynistic" on that is too easy."

I fault Dowd for too easily "assuming" it was misogynistic for calling her angry, but I say it's important to be alert to the way women are criticized for being weak and for being strong. We need to notice anti-feminism but resist being facile about it. This is a middle position on the subject. I'm not surprised that you find it hard to absorb and to keep straight. Your criticism of me for changing my position is, if you take the time to pay attention to what I wrote, quite inapt.

The rather silly thing about Hil is her patheticly weak resume. She has been a small town lawyer, a single term senator. If she uses her term as "co-president" then she is not elgible to be elected for a third term.

As for me, I don't plan to have any abortions, so don't care about that part of her platform. If you think the post office is more reliable and gives better service than Fed Express, then you will love HillaryCare.

As for me, I don't plan to have any abortions, so don't care about that part of her platform.

I don't see an abortion in my future, either, but I reject the idea that if I'm not planning to exercise a right, I can dismiss that right as unimportant. Is voting all about purely personal advantages? Or should we care about others as well?

As for the USPS versus FedEx, I'm glad to have both to choose from. The USPS is less efficient, but it's also more affordable.

I am not sure that USPS is less efficient in all aspects. If I get payment to the FedEx office by 3pm, they will deliver it to the local utility tomorrow for $10.00 or so. The Post Office will do exactly the same for $0.39, and they will pick it up from my door.

We over at elgin tyrell have had a few encounters with Gort like robotic senators ourselves. See here "clato beradda nektie" http://elgintyrell.com/2006-01/060111.htm and scroll down to the second image.

I find her pretty boring (that b word). And I can guess her platform - HillaryCare for all! She seems not as gifted as her husband. I haven't written her off entirely, but i probably wouldn't vote for her in '08.

Your personality may not be a political kiss-of-death, but when it reflects an underlying creepiness such as MzBill's, what's the difference? She has never contributed one thing of substance --i.e. that cost her anything-- to anybody: Not her sloborific husband, not her doting partisans, nobody. From cattle futures to Larry Flynt blackmail via FBI files discovered literally under her bed, this creature's career has been one of smear and ruin, lash-out, at vulnerable opponents; grovelling self-abasement towards anyone she hopes to co-opt to her own ends.

As Senator from New York, she has proposed nothing, initiated nothing, cooperated with no-one... no controversy, no issue, interests this strange, pallid, person except as it impacts her specifically. Which means of course, that Hillary is not a "politicican" at all. Her candidacy is not about "public service," pushing to achieve goals on behalf of partisan constituents. It is about validating for public purposes what her mean, sour, self-aggrandizing persona privately lacks. Believe nothing, trust nothing that people of this type do or say. They are unscrupulous, devoid of conscience, and for all their outward sheen, the reality is that they hate life and --let's face it-- if you're not Hillary, she hates you.

There exists an extensive psychological literature describing Hillary-types; there is even a clinical designation, which we shall not repeat; the point is, give 'em a wide berth. Hillary exhibits deep-seated frustration and rage at all the world, and plainly, it does show.